Chapter 6 Kavita Ridley
Kavita Ridley
Kavita stared out the window as long as she could, watching the morning sun rise.
The way these so-called men looked her up and down made Kavita feel like her skin was about to molt.
She didn’t care for authorities in any form or fashion.
Especially now, as they tried to flaunt their power over her family.
Police Chief Hank Johnson swished his toothpick back and forth in his mouth, to her annoyance.
She was happy that at least they’d had the decency to move them from the maze to inside the estate to question them.
He knelt down next to Kavita, looking at her dress, then got close to her face.
“What’s with the mark on ya face, girl?”
Kavita touched her cheek, not realizing there was a deep scratch with blood showing.
“It must have been when I ran into the rosebush—they are all overgrown. I nicked my face trying to turn away from seeing Dale. I have never seen a dead body before.”
The chief looked down while scribbling her answers on his notepad.
“Some of your staff said he was last seen alive a little before midnight. When you all discovered him, was he warm or cold?” the chief said, deepening his gaze at her.
Kavita’s eyes started to twitch. She didn’t like this stream of questions. It almost felt like she was being set up as a suspect.
“I don’t know. This whole night has been a blur, and so overwhelming,” she said, looking heartbroken.
Kavita tried her best to show some sort of remorse.
No matter how hard she tried, her face wouldn’t evoke even the slightest compassion for Dale.
Especially given how awful he had been. Kavita knew the rest of her siblings had the same feelings toward Dale.
They were all feigning some type of remorse for a man they’d wanted long gone.
She wanted to chuckle because she was glad the bastard was dead.
He’d tormented her on an important day of her life—the announcement of her engagement—and then had still somehow made it about him by dying.
This made her think: Where the hell was her doting fiancé?
He’d run off with his friends and hadn’t checked on her the whole night.
This put a bad taste in her mouth, which the officers seemed to notice.
She looked over to Wei, who stood with his arms crossed as the police checked him out, looking for anything suspicious.
Chief Hank flipped some papers around while looking at the brothers.
“We got a complaint earlier saying that you, Omar, and Diego were getting hostile with some guests. This doesn’t pertain to Dale, does it?
Maybe he got a photo of you all that you didn’t want to be . . . let’s say, released to the press?”
Tom, their family lawyer, raised his hand toward Wei to stop him from speaking. But as Kavita knew too well, Wei was never one to be silenced.
“Yeah, I knocked the lights out of uninvited guests who were terrorizing my sister. So if he did take a photo, I would hope the world would see not to mess with my family again. It would be rather noble of him, I would like to think. A nice parting gift,” Wei said with a smug smile.
“Wei, that’s enough,” Amelia said, narrowing her eyes at him.
The police chief then turned his attention to Amelia. Kavita shook her head, as Amelia and Wei always had something to say. She felt nervous. What if her sister slipped up and said something she shouldn’t?
“Tell me how you found the body again?” he asked.
Amelia grazed her tongue across her lip, holding her restraint.
“We needed some fresh air and to get away from the herd of people. The maze is our place of retreat when we need to be alone, and my younger brother, Henrik, and I saw someone in the pond. So of course our first instinct was to try to save them.”
The chief nodded before continuing. “Yes, and we do see the sculptures in the pond did have blood on them, along with shattered glass. Was that glass there when you found him?”
Amelia nodded. “It was a mess by the time we got there. I didn’t notice much until after we got him out.”
He placed his finger to his beard, stroking through it as if he was calculating his next question, as if he wanted to box them in.
“Guests and staff said they saw all seven of you at the maze as they approached. Which caused an uproar, as you being the last people to see him alive, from all accounts, is rather odd, you see. Which, to the ordinary person, would make all of you suspects. Do you follow me?”
Amelia looked at Kavita, almost as a plea for help. This took Kavita by surprise, as Amelia was the one always helping others, not needing it. One thing Kavita knew how to do best was come up with something on the spot, and that she did.
“I’d find it rather odd if we weren’t. I mean, is this not our party?
Dale had a way of always snooping around—and not just in the city.
So him crossing paths with us last night is not that shocking.
That was his job. Whether we were aware of it or not is the real question.
Which, clearly, we weren’t. Why else would we all put ourselves in danger and remain at the scene of the crime, Chief?
” She said it all in one breath, which took even her by surprise.
Amelia looked over, slightly raising her eyebrows in pleasure at her answer, which was indeed a very rare moment for her.
Kavita felt like her chest was tightening.
The never-ending questions made it feel as if the air were being vacuumed from the room. Kavita needed more than air.
She’d wanted Dale Caimen out of her way.
He’d been prying into her happiness. She had finally done something to get the public off her every move.
A married woman was a bland woman in their eyes.
Tiny bumps raised across Kavita’s delicate skin.
It wasn’t cold by any means. Not as cold as his dead body.
Dale’s horrified face began to seep into her memory.
“Since you’re so eager to speak, Kavita,” the police chief said, “was Dale really here to interview you on your upcoming engagement? Dale was usually seen with a briefcase, and yet somehow nothing is inside the briefcase. Which makes me even more curious after some young gentleman saw you yelling at him very rowdily sometime before his death. What was all the fuss about?”
Kavita looked to Adesua, then to Amelia, for help, but this time they couldn’t speak up for her.
Her throat began to go dry as she tried her best to evoke a word.
Her vocal cords tightened. She held her hand across her neck, trying to catch her breath.
She gripped the side of her dress, digging her fingers in her thigh to get a hold of herself.
The police chief stepped up, cocking his head to the left. “Young lady, I asked you a—”
“Can’t you just leave us alone! We have been prodded and shredded our whole lives.
I wanted one night to go right. I pleaded with Dale to please let us be.
I am sad and tired because I am pregnant.
Is that what you wanted to hear? This has put me all in distress.
So yes, I yelled at him, just as I yelled at my younger brother for giving me the wrong pair of shoes,” Kavita said in one breath.
Wei cocked his eyebrow in fury as the rest of them gasped.
“You’re what?”
The chief’s mouth was agape. He clearly didn’t know where to go from there.
“That’ll be all for now, young lady. We are sorry, miss.
We assure you that what you have told us doesn’t leave this room.
Mr. Ridley is a fine man. We just have to do our duty.
We will piece all of this together, but since you all so happened to need fresh air at the same time near the maze, which is the scene of the deceased, this had to be done. ”
Father walked into the room, looking at them all in disgust. It was his job to clean up their messes, after all. Kavita had made a choice that surely couldn’t be undone. Was she lying? Maybe, but she surely hadn’t bled this month. She would do anything to get these pansy men out of her face.
She looked out the window as the morning sun now blared in their faces, as massive as the truth Kavita had just told. Reporters gathered around the gates, hitting each iron rod. Snapping the same pics of the estate they had taken before, but this time, a murder had made its way onto the property.